


Letting You Go is the Worst Part of This Job

by AnonEMouse



Category: The Avengers (2012)
Genre: Because I'm not done breaking Coulson's heart, But only because the imagery is better, M/M, SHIELD agents do it bareback
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-07-09
Updated: 2012-07-09
Packaged: 2017-11-09 12:08:45
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,143
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/455286
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AnonEMouse/pseuds/AnonEMouse
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It doesn't matter who lets go first. There was nothing to hold onto anyway.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Letting You Go is the Worst Part of This Job

It starts in the Sudan.

//

“Sir,” Sitwell says, sticking his head into the command tent. “Barton is causing a…scene.”

Inside, Coulson is sighing and rolling his eyes and cursing under his breath, but outwardly all that shows is the barest tightening of his mouth. He follows Sitwell out of the tent.

“When isn’t Barton causing a scene?” He is in control. He is in charge. He is Coulson. 

He’s known Barton for nine years, was the one to bring the younger man in from the cold, and in all that time, no one has been a bigger thorn in his side. If the man weren’t such a good field agent, Coulson would have shipped him off to the Siberia post years ago, but Barton could be—was, more often than not—invaluable to field operations. Coulson preferred to have Hawkeye to be his eyes up high, and that was a purely professional preference. He will examine and re-examine this moment and every moment that came before for months and decide that yes, until now, his only feelings for Barton are purely professional ones.

“Barton, what are you—” Coulson cuts off mid-sentence and freezes, lust slamming into him like a freight train.

In the middle of their field base, Barton is stripped down to just his jock and is dumping bottles of water over his head. He knows, abstractly, though Barton isn’t handsome he is still very attractive. He knows it like he knows that there isn’t a person alive who is completely immune to Tony Stark’s charisma. But it’s just in the abstract; it isn’t real, an actual preference. But watching Barton take a bottle bath, water sluicing off the planes and angles of his body, skin tanned nut brown _all over_ , hair bleached gold by the sun, abstract becomes reality.

But he can deal with that. It won’t be easy and things might get awkward while he parses his inappropriate desire, but what follows is the end of everything. For as Barton groans through his impromptu shower, he drops his head and his shoulders sag and he looks so damn exhausted that all Coulson wants to do is pull him close and let him sleep for hours while Coulson keeps watch. And that— _that_ —is so much worse, infinitely worse than plain old lust, because _that_ is love. 

He is in love with Clint Barton.

Oh God.

//

It goes bad in Monte Carlo.

//

“Got my marching orders, boss?” Barton’s biceps bulge as he brings the bow to full draw and Coulson forces down his reaction.

“When you’re ready, Agent.” He is calm. He is cool. He is Coulson.

Barton collects his arrows, packs away his bow, and takes the folder. He reads it cover to cover in silence, then looks up at his handler. The two men stare at each for a long while. Barton closes the folder and nods once, sharply.

Coulson suffers horrible bouts of nausea on the op. When anyone comments on his pallor or his intermittent clammy sweats, he blames it on the flu. It’s better than the truth, that he’s literally sick—as in, puking up his guts at random intervals—because of what ( _who_ , but he isn’t thinking about that) Barton is doing in order to get close to a known arms dealer. When Barton comes back in the wee hours of the morning, everyone pretends not to see him walking a little funny, focusing instead on the terse nod he gives Coulson and the empty syringe he passes Sitwell. He follows Barton, intending to check on his agent after logging a kill, but he stops when he catches a glimpse of the younger man gingerly removing his pants, his legs streaked with something Coulson absolutely, positively, _is not thinking about_.

The only thing anyone remembers about Monte Carlo is that Coulson is a robot who oversaw a kill op even with the flu, and that Barton is a stone cold assassin who killed a man that was in the middle of thanking him for a world class fuck.

But Coulson remembers Barton spent over an hour in the shower that morning, and the battery of testing he had to undergo after. He never wants to send Barton into a situation like that again.

Which, of course, means that he does.

//

It gets worse in Tokyo.

//

“Tasha’s not clear,” Barton breathes into his ear.

Coulson quashes the urge to curse, knowing it isn’t Natasha’s fault, even if it does seem like she’s been nothing but trouble ever since Barton brought her back from Prague, vouching for her and defending her right to a second chance. Coulson, in turn, stood by Barton, unable to deny the man something it was in his power to give.

“How long does she need?” he whispers back, sifting through options in his mind. There aren’t many.

“Thirty minutes? Maybe forty.” Barton cocks his head a little, listening to Natasha through his earwig, but it looks like he’s nuzzling Coulson.

They’re in an upscale club in the Kabukicho, providing cover while Natasha attempts to crack the safe upstairs. Despite the swanky atmosphere, it’s the kind of place that plays into the worst stereotypes about Tokyo. The proprietor, Naguro, is a known Yakuza scumbag and possible human trafficker, and ever since they entered the building, he’s been watching them. More specifically, he’s been watching Barton.

“They’ve got rooms,” Barton murmurs, and Coulson’s heart is pounding beyond his control. “He’d follow us. To watch.”

Coulson _wants_. He’s wanted for so long—years, now—that even these unsavory circumstances are nearly impossible to resist. But he tries. He has to.

“Other options?” He can’t stop himself from lightly tracing the buckle on Barton’s belt. 

“I could try picking him up but Naguro’s a watcher. We would have a better chance than just me.”

Suppressing any sign of outward reaction, Coulson nods once and lets Barton lead him down a shadowy hall. He knows how this looks, older American businessman being seduced by a younger lover, someone on the side, hidden. He can see the story as easily as Naguro can. And apparently it’s working, because the man trails them, taking the bait. Barton pauses outside the door, leaning close and making it look good for their audience.

“That guy wants to fuck me,” he says, hands sliding down Coulson’s chest. “So you’re going to have to do me. If I do you, it’ll mess up his fantasy and he’ll fuck off.”

“Natasha’s ETA?” He is iron. He is stone. He is Coulson.

“Thirty for sure.”

They go in the room. The mirror across from the bed is most certainly two-way glass. He sheds his jacket and cuff links, toes off his shoes. Barton mirrors his movements, his eyes remote. They are silent the whole time, not speaking and barely making any noise. Barton sinks to his knees in one smooth motion and has Coulson’s belt unbuckled and fly down in mere seconds. He proceeds to blow Coulson with a thoroughness that leaves Coulson undone, beyond coherent thought, his chest heaving with silent gasps. He tries to get Barton off his cock before he comes but Barton is a stubborn bastard and he doesn’t really want to win that fight anyway, so it ends with Barton swallowing around him as his eyes roll back in his head. After, he pushes Barton back and pulls his pants off, any thought of grace or smoothness crushed by the sight of Barton’s mouth, swollen and slick with his come.

It’s a blur after that. They never make it to the bed—Coulson fucks Barton on the floor, roughly, faster than he wants to, but any attempt to slow it down is rejected by Barton, who urges him on with the demanding roll of his hips. For some reason, Barton doesn’t want this…encounter…to be any more intimate than it already is. And it is intimate. It _is_. It’s the most intimate night of Coulson’s life, even though they never speak or kiss. It’s in the way Barton does anything Coulson wants (except slow down), the way he moves after the barest pressure on his hip, his shoulder, his leg, turning and flexing and _taking it_ without hesitation or question.

When Coulson finally collapses and can’t move, too fucked out to even think about Natasha or the agents outside who must be listening in, he reaches over and lays his hand on Barton’s stomach. For one minute, Barton lays still under his hand, permitting the gentle touch that asks for nothing in return, but then he is moving, rolling away, and Coulson’s hand falls limply on the floor. Natasha got her intel, she’s clear. They can go.

They never talk about it. 

//

It breaks completely in Buenos Aires.

//

“You can say no,” Coulson says, handing over the file. “We can always come up with something else.”

Barton reads the whole file like he did all those years ago, closing it and looking at Coulson. He keeps his face blank, the poker face that is legend, while Barton studies him. Something moves in those cool grey eyes, something stormy and maybe even hurt, but it’s gone too quickly for Coulson to get a good read on it. Another sharp nod and Coulson closes his eyes, his heart cracking in his chest as Barton brushes by him.

Tokyo is two years and dozens of ops ago, and there hasn’t been an order like this since but he feels like he just betrayed Barton somehow, like the rules changed and he didn’t know. But Barton never says a word, and it’s business as usual as they set up shop in B.A. 

Barton is gone all night, and this time, he makes noise. He talks— _harder, faster, more_ —and grunts and groans through the whole thing. Even Sitwell, the second most senior agent on the op, is blushing listening to Barton’s comm. But the real insult is when Barton whispers, “Again?”

(And it is an insult, a performance, which is aimed directly at Coulson’s heart and Hawkeye never misses.)

Coulson endures round two, which Barton’s steady diet of moans tells him is slow and thorough, with his emotions so locked down he thinks he might choke on them. His heart is breaking, Barton is flaying it in his chest, punishing him for a choice Coulson made years before he ever heard the name Clint Barton. This is the job, the life Coulson dedicated himself to before he knew what the real price would be. It’s all he’s got and now he knows it’s all he will ever have. Because he’s made the wrong move somewhere and put himself on the wrong side of a line in Barton’s head, one he won’t be allowed to cross again.

Barton returns after dawn. He slips into the room with only a whisper of sound, leaving a gun on the table before stalking into the bathroom and closing the door. He passes Coulson, close enough for their clothes to brush. The shower starts up and Coulson takes the gun, motioning for the junior agents to begin packing up. He does not let himself think of the scent that washed over him as Barton passed—the unmistakable scent of sex. He thinks instead of how Barton had smelled in Tokyo, after they fucked. He thinks of the musky scent of Barton’s sweat, the tang of their come, the way their scents and their sex mingled in the air. He focuses on that in the hopes of forgetting the scent of another man’s sex on Barton’s skin.

There’s no one in the hall and he ducks into the bathroom. “Is this how it’s going to be, Barton?”

The figure behind the frosted glass stills, then resumes rinsing his hair. “How else would it be, Coulson?”

_Different_ , he wants to say. _Better_. 

Barton snorts. “Don’t go soft on me now, boss. You’re the best _handler_ I’ve ever had.”

Coulson flinches as if he’s been struck. His eyes narrow, his mouth tightens. He’s hurt and feels mean and wants to lash out. So he does.

“Hit the range when we get back, Agent. You’re hardly my best specialist.” He is hard. He is ice. He is Coulson.

He is gone.

Barton leans against the shower wall, head down, chest heaving as something painful and damaged breaks him apart. He pants and bites down on his lip, refusing to give voice to the wounded noise he wants to make. He pushes it all down ruthlessly, like he has every other disappointment in his life. He refuses to think that Coulson broke his heart (or that he broke Coulson’s). There was never anything to break anyway. 

It’s just the job. That’s all that was ever between them. And that’s fine.

_That’s fine_. 

//

There is no happy ending. 

How could there be?


End file.
